Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games – 2019 Week 1

September 5, 2019

By Ha Kung Wong

Time for a new season of NFL football which means we’re back with more Daily Fantasy Football advice for Cash Games! For the second half of 2018, we were over 80% for cash lineups and we’re looking forward to doing more of the same in 2019!

As usual, before we get to winning you bragging rights (and DFS cash), remember, the point of this article is not just to give you one or two lineups for each site, it’s to give you examples of one or two POSSIBLE lineups. Getting exposure to a few different lineups is always a good idea, so don’t forget to mix and match additional lineups from my suggestions below. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun that way AND you’ll improve your chances of cashing!

Let’s get to winning you some CASH in Week 1 of the 2019 NFL season!

Cash Games, for those who don’t know, are essentially the lowest risk games. They include “50/50” games, in which half the entrants win about 1.8x the entry fee, and “Double Ups”, in which slightly less than half the entrants win 2x the entry fee.

Since there’s so many different sites, and I can’t cover them all, I’ve decided to cover just the most popular sites, including Fan Duel, Draft Kings and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy.

First of all, as a general rule for 50/50 Cash Games, there’s a basic target of points per salary cap spent that you’d like to look for:

For Fan Duel try to target at least 2 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
For Draft Kings, try to target at least 2.5 fantasy points per $1000 spent.
For Yahoo! Daily Fantasy, try to target at least 0.6-0.7 fantasy points per $1 spent.

Remember, this article is not focused on GPP (Tournament) Games, JUST Cash Games. Feel free to use a few of these suggested players as a base when constructing a GPP lineup, but you’ll have to take some chances on a few low cost, upside players as well.

And this year, I’m trying something different. I’m going to provide you with a few sample lineups on each site and give you a few notes to consider. You’re welcome. 🙂

So, without further to do, here are my suggestions for the Best Daily Fantasy Football Plays for Cash Games for Week 1 contests, along with they’re prices on Fan Duel (“FD”), Draft Kings (“DK”) and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy (“Y!”).

FanDuel

Draft Kings

Yahoo! DFS

Game Notes:

With Melvin Gordon continuing to hold out, your free square this week is Austin Ekeler. Just load up on all sites and move on. If you’re really hurting for cap space, I also don’t mind a Justin Jackson punt.
The San Francisco 49ers @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers game is my DFS special of the week. This game has the 4th highest total estimated points (50) in Week 1 with both teams having terrible pass defenses (SF 27th vs pass DVOA in 2018, TB 30th vs. pass DVOA in 2018). That means I like options on both sides, including Jameis Winston, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and OJ Howard on the Buccaneers and Dante Pettis and George Kittle on the 49ers. For the Buccaneers, we may all disagree on how effective he is, but we can all agree Bruce Arians loves to throw the ball, so that’s total fantasy goodness for every Buc in the pass game. As for the 49ers, I don’t quite trust Jimmy G yet, but George Kittle should be a beast while Dante Pettis is an acceptable punt with upside as the likely WR1.
Saquon Barkley is my pay-up player of the week. He has monster usage both on the ground and through the air. He had the second most runs and third most receptions among all RBs in 2018, and there’s no reason why that won’t continue with OBJ now in Cleveland. Plus he faces the Cowboys who were only 26th against RB receptions per DVOA in 2018.
Lamar Jackson was one of the most consistent fantasy scorers in 2018 starts due to his ability to run the ball. Thankfully, the Miami Dolphins are bottom 10 in DVOA vs. the run AND pass. Guess what? Jackson does both of those things. In addition, I think the Ravens are playing from ahead as they’re favored by 6.5 against Miami, so we’ll likely see Jackson run the clock out with short passes and rush yards.
Carson Wentz is fully healthy (again) and plays an exploitable Redskins secondary with essentially just Josh Norman in coverage. He’s reasonably priced for the upside, so I like him as well.
Dede Westbrook is often overlooked in what’s traditionally seen as a run based offense in Jacksonville. But he’s still the top target in Jacksonville with a brand new QB in a game with the second highest projected points of the weekend (52). Plus, the Jaguars are going to need to air it out to stay competitive with the Chiefs.
Chris Carsons and Nick Chubb benefit from being big home favorites (9.5 for the Seahawks and 5.5 for the Browns) which means more time to grind out yards against subpar run defenses (Bengals and Titans, respectively).
Although I think the Seattle Seahawks will easily handle the Cincinnati Bengals, I do like Tyler Boyd as a mid-priced play this week with AJ Green out and the Bengals probably in catch up mode most of the day.
At TE, I like Evan Engram as he’s likely to be one of the top 2 targets for the Giants against the Cowboys, or Austin Hooper if you’re looking to save some cap space since he was 7th in TE redzone targets in 2018 and is facing a Vikings defense that is 30th in DVOA against TEs.
The Los Angeles Chargers Defense is a top 5 defense in its own right, but get to face the Indianapolis Colts suddenly less one Andrew Luck and plus one “not-as-scary” Jacoby Brissett. Plus they’re available cheap on all sites because most of them didn’t account for the sudden Luck retirement. But if you want to pay up at defense, go for the Baltimore Ravens Defense against the tanking Miami Dolphins.